


somewhere different now

by thingswithwings



Category: Stephen King - The Stand
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Apocalypse, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:jade_starlight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It doesn't have to be like it was</em>, the note reads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	somewhere different now

**Author's Note:**

> I checked "major character death," but that refers only to one character's death in canon.

The bleachers out at the amphitheatre groan when Larry sits down, the old wood giving just a little noise into the night, as if glad to be used again. Stu doesn't look up, just hands Larry a warm beer and leans back on his hands, tilting his head up into the twilight. Frannie, on Stu's other side, smiles at him, and Nick, sitting backwards on the next row of bleachers down, gives him a friendly nod.

"Thanks, Stu," Larry says, and takes a drink. He used to hate warm beer in the summer; now he's getting used to it.

There's a long silence, and it feels pretty comfortable to Larry, but after a while he starts to wonder if he interrupted a conversation when he walked up here and joined the three of them. On the ground are scattered a few crumpled pieces of notepaper, evidence of Nick's part in whatever they were talking about before he showed up. They're mostly balled up, but one has some of Nick's writing showing, less precise than his usual neat script, rough around the edges, underlined three times.

Larry nudges it away with his shoe. "So what were you all talking about before I showed up?" He tries to laugh a little, like it's a joke.

Frannie licks her lips. "Nick was trying to convince us that we get to have some kind of dream world now."

Nick looks annoyed and seesaws his hand.

Stu turns and meets Larry's eyes. "He was saying that it don't have to be America like we used to have it," Stu says, and for some reason Larry feels weight in those words, as if they weren't just bullshit hypothetical ideas, like the kind Glen is always spouting.

"Shouldn't we wait for Glen to have this conversation?"

For some reason, Frannie laughs. It sounds muted, choked. "No, I don't think so," Stu says, in that slow way. He hesitates, the way that Larry hardly ever sees him hesitate, and then Frannie elbows him in the side.

"Go on, Stu" she says.

And Stu palms his big-motherfucker Texan hand over Larry's cheek and kisses him, softly.

When Stu pulls away, Larry doesn't meet his eyes, but glances down to see what Nick's scribbling in his notebook.

 _It doesn't have to be like it was,_ the note reads. Larry holds it for a minute, then crumples it in his hand.

"What're you talking about?" Larry says, not yelling. "Of course it fucking does."

He leaves them to their half-gay threesome or whatever. He's not going to make it an orgy.

-

Two days later, Nick gets himself blown up doing something stupid and brave and stupid, and Larry goes to visit Fran in the hospital.

Stu's stepped out for water when he arrives, so he just sits by Frannie's bed and holds her hand for a minute.

"It's not your fault, Larry," Fran says. "Don't be an idiot."

"I didn't say anything about it being my fault."

Fran collapses back against the pillow, looking exhausted. "You always think it's your fault," she says. "It's really tiring, actually."

He can't bring himself to yell at a woman in a hospital bed, so he just holds her hand a little harder. She tugs at it.

"C'mere," she says. He stares at her blankly. "Come here, would you? I'm not very mobile myself."

So Larry leans down towards her, telling himself that maybe she wants to whisper something in his ear, maybe hug him or something, and he can do that, he's a hugger, he hugs, but then she puts her smalltown-bugfuck-Maine soft hand over Larry's cheek and kisses him, softly. And he kisses her, gives her back the kiss he had with Stu.

He hears a step behind him, and pulls away, but it's just Stu, Stu's hand on his back, rubbing slow circles. He's caught between the two of them, Frannie's hand on his arm, Stu's hand between his shoulderblades, and he doesn't know what to do but stand there.

"Mother Abigail's coming round," Stu says, eventually. "We gotta get in there."

-

Two days later, on the road to Vegas, Larry reaches into the pocket of his jeans, looking for a lighter, and comes up with a piece of paper.

 _It doesn't have to be like it was,_ the note reads.

Larry sits down hard beside the would-be campfire. Stu looks up at the sound and comes over to hunker down beside him.

"That's what you call it in Texas, right?" Larry says. "Hunkering down."

"Yeah," Stu says, as if what Larry just said made any sense at all, and takes the paper from Larry's hand. Then he sits down, too, in the dirt beside Larry, and stretches his legs out a bit.

"It's never gonna be like it was," Larry says, and he doesn't know what he means or who he means or whether it's a good thing or not.

Stu says, "Nope," because he likes to play up that down-south slowness when Larry gets all New York irritated, and he reaches between them, and holds Larry's hand.

Larry squeezes back.

  



End file.
